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A few weeks before he was gunned down on a Hilltop sidewalk, a 17-year-old Westland High School
student wept after watching a speeding car kill a dog that was crossing Belvidere Avenue.

Friends now see the incident as tragic foreshadowing. On Sunday about 9:15 p.m., E'stabonn Pitts
was lying on the same street, his head on a friend's lap, her mother's hands on his gunshot
wounds.

Pitts, of Hilton Avenue on the Far West Side, died in Mount Carmel West hospital shortly after
11:40 p.m. that night.

"He was very trusting, just a good kid," said Regina Petersen, 47, who put pressure on Pitts'
wounds to try to stop the bleeding.

Her three children were close friends of Pitts, who worked at nearby Bellmans Market. He had
just left work and was walking to a bus stop on W. Broad Street, said Gino Durette, Pitts' boss at
the market.

A witness, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said two men called out to
Pitts and then shot him twice.

The witness said Pitts was shot several more times as he struggled to find cover.

A group of friends gathered at Pitts' home yesterday to grieve and comfort his mother, Tamala
West, and sister, Shaqueela West, 18.

All described Pitts as a sweet person with an easy smile. They said he had been looking forward
to his 18th birthday.

Pitts loved video games and pizza, was partial to slushies and would ride his bike to White
Castle, even in the morning if the spirit moved him.

"He was a good kid," his mother said.

Police issued a warrant yesterday for Shante Deshawn Kelley, 18, of Commons Road in
Reynoldsburg, in connection with Pitts' death.

Family and friends said that even in a neighborhood that has seen its fair share of violence,
this shooting was cold-hearted and senseless.

"I'd suspect it for other people," said Cornelius Blankenship, another friend from the
neighborhood. "But not for him. It's how you'd do a dog."